Uncategorized

Early Long Melford baptisms

Posted on by Helen Barrell

Years ago, I transcribed from Long Melford marriages from the mid-1740s, and I haven’t been back since (apart from a trip to Long Melford Hall with my mum!). That’s all changed, as I’ve started to transcribe the earliest-surviving register for the parish, which dates from the late 1500s and goes up to the mid-1700s.

The early pages are quite challenging – please check my notes to see what I’ve been up against! It’s a large parish with a big population, and in the pages of the register, you’ll find members of the gentry from the Martin and Clopton families, jostling alongside wealthy clothiers and their weavers. Long Melford is next door to Sudbury, and sits on the Essex border, beside Foxearth, Liston, and Borley. Its Suffolk borders are next to Glemsford, Stanstead, Shimpling, Alpheton, Lavenham, and Acton. So if you’ve been hunting a missing ancestor from any of those places, you might find them here.

For your delectation and delight, here are over 1,100 baptisms for Long Melford, from 1560 to 1585. Lots more to follow soon!

Birthing scene from the Wellcome Collection. Frustratingly, few mother’s names are recorded with this set of baptisms, despite the crucial role that women play – giving birth, attending birth, and caring for the infants.

Essex

Mersea Island families

Posted on by Helen Barrell

Do you have family from Mersea Island? Have a look at the wealth of information on the Mersea Museum website! Their family history section includes names rawn from documents such as tithe maps, along with locals who died in the world wars, and even the names of children evacuated to the island during WW2.

Suffolk/Transcriptions

Bildeston marriages, 1559-1754

Posted on by Helen Barrell

A Christmas gift for you – nearly 800 marriages for Bildeston, Suffolk, from 1559-early 1754.

Christmas Day weddings were popular in the past – but why? Because Advent is like Lent in the Church calendar, a solemn time when Christians would reflect on a world without Christ in it. The church colour for Advent is purple, a colour of mourning, so you’ll see, for instance, purple altar cloths (even with Christmas decorations in the church). But Christmas Day was a day of celebration, and with it, celebrations of marriage.

Transcriptions of Bildeston’s marriages back to 1559 have been available for a long time, thanks to Boyd’s Marriages, but they don’t include abodes and marital statuses. Although the register doesn’t carry a great deal of extra information for the marriages, aside from names and dates, the amount of detail accompanying marriages from the Commonwealth period is significant. If you can’t find a marriage in the mid-1600s, then do check these marriages, as couples from villages and towns around Bildeston were married there as one of the Justices of the Peace for Suffolk was resident – it was JPs who performed marriages at that time, not vicars!

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for long enough! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!